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"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

Official bowl speculation / "How tan will I get this Christmas?" thread

Official bowl speculation / "How tan will I get this Christmas?" thread

I'm not sure about a lot of this, but I thought that I'd start a thread to collect some news, speculation, and opinions.

Here's what's extremely likely: we'll play an SEC team in either the Outback Bowl or Gator Bowl. With Nebraska losing, we're ineligible for the Capital One Bowl, since we have two fewer wins than Nebraska. So either Nebraska or Northwestern will go to the Capital One.

Then the Outback Bowl picks. They'll choose between Michigan and whichever of Nebraska and Northwestern doesn't go to the Capital One Bowl. If the Capital One picks Northwestern, the Outback has to pick Nebraska. Then the Gator Bowl chooses, and they'll almost certainly pick whichever of the three is left.

That means that we're playing an SEC team. If you believe some reporting out there by the Atlanta Journal Constitution and Shreveport Times (links below), the SEC bowl picture seems to be clarifying. It sounds like the Capital One will probably take Texas A&M (maybe for an old Big 12 battle vs. Nebraska). They probably also like that they'll get the likely Heisman winner.

The Shreveport Times then says this:

The Outback Bowl in Tampa, Fla., is next, and it is strongly in favor of taking No. 10 South Carolina (10-2). A logical place for the Gamecocks could be the Chick-fil-A Bowl, but that bowl is locked into No. 14 Clemson (10-2) as an opponent. And the SEC does not want a South Carolina-Clemson rematch after those two just played on Nov. 24.

Most projections I've seen have Mississippi State in the Gator Bowl.

So if you believe what's above and that the Big Ten is more unsettled than the SEC, we're most likely looking at South Carolina in the Outback Bowl or Mississippi State in the Gator Bowl.

Worth noting ----- It's very possible that all of this is wrong or premature.

Why even bother posting or reading, or being interested in Michigan football if you're going to automatically declare a match-up against SC a loss? It's a football game and anything can happen. We could beat SC. It's a good thing you aren't a coach. I can't believe the pessimistic fans on this site sometimes.

I hope you're right about the Heisman but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it went to Te'o. Too good of a player, too good of a person, too good of a story, and he's on a NCG team to top it all off.

There seems to be conflicting information on whether we are able to be selected by the Capital One Bowl. Some are saying that Capital One is tweeting that Michigan is still in play because the contract is within one win OR loss.

We aren't eligible for the Capital One Bowl. The rules are pretty clear, and on top of that, the Capital One Bowl has said so via its Twitter account (after a misleading tweet suggesting the opposite). Adam Rittenberg wrote something about this and the Capital One Bowl confirmed that what he says here is correct.

So if we played Midwest Regional State instead of Alabama we could have been going to the Capital One bowl? That 2 loss rule is BS. Northwestern is rewarded for playing a crap out of conference schedule. This is just one more reason teams schedule non conference pushovers.

Seriously, we went 6-2 in conference, finished ahead of them in the Division standings, and we're stuck in a shitty bowl matchup because we played the 2 National Title teams and they played Syracuse (7-5) and Vandy (8-4)

Bowl selection committees will always pick Michigan over Northwestern if they have the option. We're a powerful brand name. We put asses in the seats. Northwestern doesn't. Northwestern home games are glorified high school games. Most people at the school couldn't care less about the football program.

Attention campers. Lunch is cancelled due to lack of hustle. Deal with it.

Actually Northwestern had some of the Big Ten's only out of conference wins against BCS teams. They had 3 wins against Syracuse, BC, and Vandy. Obviously not powerhouses, but 2 of them are playing in bowl games.

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.

Northwestern is not going to get picked over us. Their overall record is only one game better, so we're eligible to go over them (though not Nebraska). Our fanbase is much larger and any bowl will choose us first. The teams that will be slotted below NW will all be 7-5 or 6-6.

No way in hell that Wisconsin vs. Stanford is a push. Wisconsin will be lucky to keep it competitive. Won't be able to rush for 600 yards against Stanford. I wish Wisconsin luck, but they won't be winning the Rose Bowl.

I don't know - I would have said the same thing 5 weeks ago, but this Wisconsin team really really got destroyed by injury and by QB ineptidude and by coaching ineptitude. Stanford is a little overrated, and in my opinion; they don't have the kryptonite to this Wisconsin team. They don't have any gamechangers on defense and they don't have as much speed as, for example Taylor Martinez, or Mariota, or De Anthony Thomas.

I really believe that they're going to bring their A+ game for this 3rd rose bowl of theirs. They can't afford to let another one slip away. I think they win in a great game.

This is the other side of the toss-up coin. Although I think Minnesota will definitely win also. TCU is not good at all... they benefit from playing in a weak Big 12 schedule.. their record should be something like 3-9 on the season.